The Effect on the Development of Writing Proficiency and Self-Reflection Through Bi-Semester Self-Assessment
2026 Volume 13 Pages 3-20
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2026 Volume 13 Pages 3-20
This study examined changes in writing proficiency and self-reflection across two semesters in an academic writing class. A total of 55 Japanese university students compiled portfolios and wrote reflective comments after each assignment, guided by five criteria: task fulfilment, organization/coherence, lexical usage, grammatical accuracy, and overview. At the end of each semester, students reviewed their portfolios and provided free-form self-assessments. Text mining was used to analyze these reflections, comparing changes between semesters. Additionally, two raters evaluated students’ first, fifth, and tenth writing tests using the same criteria. A one-way repeated ANOVA showed a significant development in writing performance between the beginning and end of the year. Students increasingly emphasized organization and coherence, noting improvements in expressing arguments and opinions. While grammar and vocabulary remained ongoing challenges, students reported greater self-awareness and strategic planning for future writing. The bi-semester self-assessment process enabled learners to recognize their progress and fostered a sense of accomplishment. However, further research is recommended to explore effective integration of portfolios into academic writing instruction and teacher intervention.
As the background to this study, it has often been noted that the writing skills of learners of English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL) receive less attention in both research and teaching than other skills such as speaking (Amiran & Mann, 1982; Lipstein & Renninger, 2007). One key reason for this is the limited time dedicated to English composition in Japanese middle and high schools, and even when writing is taught, it often involves simplistic tasks such as sentence rearrangement or translating Japanese sentences into English, which are still treated as “writing instruction” (Hirose, 2003; Oi, 2019). As a result, many students struggle to adapt to academic writing at university level, where they are required to produce substantial amounts of English text without any prior experience in fundamental paragraph writing (Mulvey, 2016).
On the teaching side, it has been reported that writing classes tend to become monotonous, and educators often struggle to provide effective feedback (Oi, 2019), thus emphasizing the need for innovative tools such as an academic writing portfolio, which can address these challenges for both students and teachers. Improving English writing skills, which has recently been highlighted as an essential productive skill, requires creative and novel approaches, rather than simply repeating the cycle of completing isolated assignments and conducting summative assessments, which makes it difficult to support learners’ growth closely. For effective formative assessment, the ideal is to have a system that enables a comprehensive view of each learner’s developmental process, provides appropriate feedback at each stage, and guides them towards the next level of learning. Formative assessment is often referred to as “assessment for learning” because it involves monitoring learners' progress, identifying areas where they lack understanding, and using feedback to help them achieve their next learning goals and consolidate their knowledge. Writing activities, in comparison to oral ones, tend to lack active peer interaction within the classroom and are often solitary and monotonous.
As one solution aimed at guiding academic writing classes toward more reflective and developmental activities, a portfolio is expected to enhance learners’ metacognitive abilities, allowing them to reflect on their progress, deepen their introspection, and set their own learning goals. The use of a portfolio in academic writing classes might foster more autonomous learning, as it serves as a foundation for continuing self-directed study even after graduating from university. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate learners’ awareness of academic writing through bi-semester self-assessment, while also focusing on the process of learning English writing, and it aims to develop a portfolio that facilitates effective formative assessment, the result of which will be beneficial for both teachers and learners.
Since the 1980s, writing instruction methods grounded in cognitivism have garnered significant interest. These methods focus on the writing process rather than the final written product in terms of cognitivism, emphasizing how writers articulate their thoughts in written form. A portfolio is particularly well suited to this approach, as it can make the writer’s cognitive processes transparent and visible, and even record the pre-writing phase. Moreover, it facilitates guiding learners in revising or rewriting their work by enabling an awareness of their cognitive position, thereby motivating them to pursue educational objectives through the regulation of affect, motivation, and attitudes, which are essential to fostering self-development and personal goal setting. A portfolio helps learners to be aware of their position and encourages them to strive for learning goals by regulating and controlling affect, motivation, and behavior, which in turn lead to the support of self-development and self-goals. In other words, a portfolio enhances self-awareness, which is considered to be a state variable, whereas self-consciousness is considered a trait variable (Klenowski, 2010; Lam, 2018; Weigle, 2002; Yin, 2014; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001). This heightened self-awareness is intrinsically linked to self-regulation, which comprises three components: self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reaction. Reflective opportunities at the conclusion of each term are intended to cultivate students’ self-regulatory capacities. In a nutshell, it is believed that learners’ awareness through bi-semester self-assessment promotes self-regulation. Zimmerman and Schunk noted the importance of three self-regulation processes, namely self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reactions (Earl, 2013; Earl & Katz, 2008; Lam, 2014), and Zimmerman and Schunk (2001, p. 99) posited that these processes influence a range of cognitive and affective variables, including: concentration and attention; organizing, rehearsal of information to be remembered, and effective use of resources; beliefs about the self, learning tasks, and outcomes; and the experience of satisfaction and pride in one’s work.
Learners strive for these goals in an autonomous and self-disciplined way. They shape their self-concepts through continual engagement in goal-oriented processes as proactive agents. To fulfil these aims, learners also engage in self-monitoring and self-evaluation processes to enhance their self-awareness and self-definition, as well as regulating their own developmental trajectories. As learners grow and develop, learning processes, behaviors, and strategies evolve accordingly. It is believed that a portfolio is useful for nurturing self-awareness, self-monitoring, and goal setting, with the significance of the latter lying in its demonstration of learners’ metacognitive development, because they reflect on their planning strategies, learning processes, and methods of monitoring and evaluating comprehension or output. In order to acquire the ability to set goals, the capacity for self-regulation is a prerequisite for learners.
As previously stated, a portfolio is expected to develop self-awareness, which is seen as a precursor to self-evaluation and affect in the development of self-system processes. It is considered a state, whereas self-consciousness is seen as a dispositional trait (Sadler, 2010; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001). In striving toward their goals, learners act with autonomy and self-discipline, as active agents molding and creating their self-concept through the continual engagement of processes in goal-directed activity. Learners engage in self-monitoring their progress and assess their achievements, thereby fostering greater self-awareness and self-definition in regulating and controlling their own self-development process. As learners grow and develop, so do learning processes and behaviors. In essence, the development of self-system structures and processes is assumed to be the fundamental phenomenon that explains the development of learning processes and behaviors, increasing capabilities for regulating and controlling affect, motivation, and behavior, all in support of self-development and self-goals (Paris & Paris, 2001; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001).
2.2 Written Portfolio and ePortfolioThe adoption of ePortfolio technologies in higher education has increased significantly in recent years, accompanied by the advancement of their functional capabilities. Historically, academic attention has primarily centered on their application for assessment purposes, particularly in relation to predefined criteria or standards (Pelliccione & Dixon, 2008). However, there is growing recognition of their potential as pedagogical tools within teaching environments (Barrett, 2005; Chesney & Marcangelo, 2010). To fully realize this potential, the importance of a systematic approach to implementation and ongoing evaluation has been emphasized, with a particular focus on pedagogical integration (Roberts et al., 2016; Shepherd & Hannafin, 2011). Nevertheless, as Housego and Parker (2009, p. 409) caution, ePortfolios should not be viewed as a universal solution for promoting student reflection. It has thus been recommended that online teaching and learning environments be strategically developed, tested, and critically reviewed to ensure that such technologies are meaningfully embedded within the learning process (Phillips et al., 2012). Consequently, the use of ePortfolios for written self-reflection may give rise to certain concerns (Roberts, 2018). When students are required to submit their reflections as part of formal university assessments, the reflective writing process may shift from a personal exploration to a task driven by external expectations. When students are required to submit their reflections as part of formal university assessments, they may feel compelled to conform to standardized formats and content in order to achieve favorable grades (Hobbs, 2007; Roberts et al., 2014). As a result, the reflective writing process may shift from a personal exploration to a task driven by external expectations and, as such, the intrinsic value of the reflective process can be compromised.
While portfolios have been introduced into educational contexts to foster self-reflection, the specific effectiveness of ePortfolios in promoting reflective practice remains underexplored. Therefore, the present study employed handwritten self-reflection entries to analyze changes in students' reflective abilities across two semesters.
While the ability to listen and speak a language tends to develop naturally, writing skills—even in one’s first language—are generally acquired through explicit instruction and socialization within the cultural context to which one belongs. Writers must learn to adhere to the rhetorical conventions specific to their culture and develop the specialized skills required for processes such as planning, drafting, and revising. These challenges become even more pronounced when writing in a second or foreign language. In this context, portfolio-based approaches may support language learners in enhancing their writing skills by fostering greater awareness of how to improve their overall proficiency.
2.3 ReflectionThe concept of reflection has been defined in various ways, particularly in descriptions of its cognitive and developmental processes (Rogers, 2001). Strampel and Oliver (2010, p. 973) describe reflection as “a complex process that strongly influences learning by increasing understanding, inducing conceptual change, and promoting critical evaluation and knowledge transfer.” Reflection and self-reflection are deeply intertwined with learning, serving as catalysts for the development of one’s capacity for autonomous action. Moreover, they are essential for both the evaluation and regulation of learning, as they involve assuming personal responsibility for one’s thinking and behavior. This study adopts Korthagen’s definition of reflection (1999, p. 193), which frames it as “the mental process of structuring or restructuring an experience, a problem, or preexisting knowledge or recognition.” In this context, self-reflection is understood as the capacity to critically assess one’s own strengths and weaknesses, and to identify learning challenges or opportunities. It involves both the ability and willingness to engage in personal introspection—for example, by questioning the impact of a specific event, thought, or experience on oneself.
The following two research questions are proposed:
The study was conducted over two semesters in the 2024 academic year. The participants comprised 55 university students (18 male, 37 female), aged from 18 to 20 years, who majored in education and psychology in academic writing classes. The students were expected to compile all of their English writing for academic writing classes in a portfolio. A total of 12 types of writing task were given to students, who also received lessons on topics and categories such as narrative and argumentative writing before completing their written texts. Table 1 presents a list of the writing tasks that were to be completed in class. For the final submission of each writing task, students were asked to write between 200 and 300 words in 20 minutes without using dictionaries; these tasks were set as tests in class. Two raters evaluated students’ writing based on five analytical components, each of which was worth four points, amounting to a maximum of 20 points: 1) task fulfillment; 2) organization/coherence; 3) lexical use; 4) grammatical accuracy; and 5) overview. At the end of each semester, students were asked to review and evaluate their whole semester’s writing based on the same five assessment criteria as the above. They also had to write reflective comments on the portfolio, including what they found and thought based on these five criteria.
| The first semester | The second semester |
|---|---|
| 1. Self-introduction | 7. Problem solution about health |
| 2. Describe others* | 8. Classification (music and sports) |
| 3. My hometown | 9. Definition of education |
| 4. Last weekend | 10. Write your opinion |
| 5. Write an email to your friend | 11. Reasons for poverty |
| 6. Similarities between two countries** | 12. Reasons for later marriage*** |
Note. * was used as the first writing test; ** was used for the second writing test; *** was used for the final test.
The study adopted a mixed-method approach to analyze the data to discover how a writing portfolio could help students to deepen their self-reflection and develop writing proficiency.
Quantitative Analysis. Each analytical component and the sum of evaluations assessed by raters were analyzed by conducting a one-way repeated ANOVA in order to examine the change in the average scores between the first, second, and final writing proficiency tests through a bi-semester writing portfolio. In the analysis, “Describe others” was chosen as the first writing test, “Similarities between two countries” was used for the mid-writing test, and “Reasons for later marriage” was selected for the final writing test.
Qualitative Analysis. The descriptive responses written in Japanese or English for the five analytical criteria were analyzed using a quantitative text analysis method known as “text mining,” which involves exploring textual data and identifying patterns utilizing computational techniques. The reflections originally written in Japanese were translated into English by the researcher and subsequently reviewed by each respective student to ensure the accuracy of meaning. Final approval of the translations was obtained from the students.
The advantage of text mining lies in its ability to enhance reliability by facilitating data exploration to determine the most frequently occurring words and by providing precise statistical insights (Higuchi et al., 2023). On the other hand, according to Oki (2018), text mining has certain drawbacks, such as “the risk of overlooking important information” and “the risk of misinterpreting the text’s content” (p. 259). To mitigate these risks, the analysis underwent a review by research collaborators.
For the text mining process, KH Coder (https://khcoder.net/) was used to analyze the patterns in descriptive replies following the methodology outlined by Higuchi et al. (2023). The analytical procedure consisted of two main steps: The first was to verify the results for the words automatically extracted by KH Coder; and the second was to identify and analyze specific concepts that were of particular interest to the researchers. The frequent occurrence results from the initial stage were used as a reference for word extraction. Modifications were made to the default settings of co-occurrence network analysis, including changing the aggregation unit to sentences and adding negation auxiliary verbs to the part-of-speech-based word selection criteria. Additionally, adjustments were made to visualize stronger co-occurrences with thicker lines and to display the results in grayscale. In the analysis, there was a focus on co-occurrence patterns and concordance, with particular attention paid to the relationships between strongly connected words. Through this, we examined the changes in concepts and perceptions regarding the advising process among research participants. After quantitative and qualitative analysis, the results were triangulated in order to find the effect of the writing portfolio.
A one-way repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to examine the change in writing proficiency through bi-semester self-assessments by compiling a portfolio. Only “Organization and Coherence” did not present any significant difference between the first, second, and final tests, but the other four analytical components and the total sum showed a significant difference between the conditions (Table 2). Bonferroni’s multiple comparison test was also employed, and it was found that the scores increased significantly with each successive stage, i.e., from the initial to the intermediate stage, indicating an overall upward trend in writing proficiency throughout the academic year. Notably, the improvement from the initial to the intermediate stage was particularly marked across all evaluated criteria except “Organization and Coherence.” It was found that the scores of the total sum, “Task fulfillment” and “Vocabulary,” might improve from the first to the second test, but the second and final tests did not present any notable improvements. In other words, compared to the first test, the scores of the second and final tests did not show any major development. The improvement of scores in “Grammar” was not found between the second and final test, but there was an increase between the first and the final test. In short, writing proficiency might develop, especially from the beginning to the end of the first semester, but such improvement was not clearly found from the middle to the end of the second semester.
| Occasion | n | m | SD | F | p value | Multiple Comparison | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Task Fulfillment |
First | 42 | 3.07 | .34 | 3.64 | .030 | First < Mid First < Final |
| Mid | 42 | 3.36 | .62 | ||||
| Final | 42 | 3.36 | .69 | ||||
| Grammar | First | 42 | 3.38 | .49 | 6.20 | .003 | First < Final |
| Mid | 42 | 3.52 | .51 | ||||
| Final | 42 | 3.74 | .45 | ||||
| Vocabulary | First | 42 | 2.79 | .87 | 26.91 | <.001 | First < Mid First < Final |
| Mid | 42 | 3.98 | .87 | ||||
| Final | 42 | 3.79 | .90 | ||||
| Organization & Coherence | First | 42 | 4.93 | .46 | 1.00 | .370 | n.s. |
| Mid | 42 | 5.00 | .00 | ||||
| Final | 42 | 5.00 | .00 | ||||
| Total Sum | First | 42 | 14.17 | 1.15 | 28.16 | <.001 | First < Mid First < Final |
| Mid | 42 | 15.86 | 1.46 | ||||
| Final | 42 | 15.88 | 1.23 |
In accordance with the four analytical components, and the overview self-assessment, the dominant descriptive patterns and word co-occurrences in students’ responses were examined.
Task Fulfillment in the First and Second Semesters. Table 3 displays the ten most frequently used words in students’ self-assessments over the two semesters. The top five words relating to task fulfillment remained largely consistent, with the exception of “content,” which rose to fifth place in the second semester. This suggests a shift in students’ writing focus from merely completing assignments to placing increased emphasis on the quality and depth of their written content.
| Ranking | First semester | Frequency | Ranking | Second semester | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | task | 30 | 1 | task | 32 |
| 2 | think | 24 | 2 | submission | 24 |
| 3 | write | 16 | 3 | write | 22 |
| 4 | submission | 15 | 4 | think | 16 |
| 5 | myself | 11 | 5 | content | 13 |
| 6 | class | 11 | 6 | myself | 9 |
| 7 | accomplish-ment | 11 | 6 | accomplish-ment | 9 |
| 8 | sentence | 11 | 8 | hand in | 8 |
| 9 | every time | 9 | 8 | sentence | 8 |
| 10 | the second term | 8 | 10 | work on | 7 |
| 10 | designation | 8 | |||
| 10 | time | 8 | |||
| 10 | can write | 8 | |||
| Sum | 170 | 148 |
The KH Coder map for the first semester illustrates co-occurrence relationships among words in students’ responses, with “write,” “task,” “think,” and “accomplishment” exhibiting strong interconnections. In the second semester, although “task” and “submission” remained frequent, the co-occurrence map reveals more intricate interrelations, indicating that students’ engagement evolved toward a more interconnected and reflective approach. “Writing” is directly associated with “the opening,” which further links to “expression,” “sentence,” and “grammar.” A noteworthy connection between “satisfaction” and “myself” is observed in the first semester but does not persist into the second.
Organization/Coherence in the First and Second Semesters. The main difference in the coding for organization/coherence between the end of the first semester and the end of the second lies in the appearance of “sentence” and “topic” codes in the first term, whereas “awareness” and “difficulty” codes emerge in the second, with “sentence” disappearing from the top ten. This suggests that at the end of the first term, learners were still heavily focused on individual sentences and topics, which represented significant challenges in their writing. By the end of the second term, however, they had developed the ability to reflect on their work from different perspectives, indicating a shift in their cognitive approach. The KH Coder map for the first semester shows the reflection on structure/coherence in the first semester (see Appendix 1), with the most frequently used words being “task,” “write,” “submission,” “class,” “time,” and “deadline.” In the second semester, however, reflections on “structure”, “content”, and “coherence” became prominent. Additionally, codes related to the structural aspects of writing, such as “conclusion” and “introduction,” appeared, and words like “reason,” “concreteness,” “assertion,” “opinion,” and “theme” also emerged, reflecting how the writers worked to express their ideas more effectively. This suggests that, over the course of the year-long academic writing class, students demonstrated significant development in their ability to reflect and improve as writers (Appendix 2).
| Ranking | First semester | Frequency | Ranking | Second semester | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | write | 48 | 1 | write | 33 |
| 2 | sentence | 46 | 2 | content | 32 |
| 3 | content | 25 | 3 | structure | 29 |
| 4 | think | 22 | 4 | think | 27 |
| 5 | structure | 21 | 5 | coherence | 18 |
| 6 | coherence | 17 | 6 | writing | 11 |
| 7 | topic | 14 | 7 | class | 8 |
| 7 | writing | 14 | 8 | feel | 7 |
| 9 | can write | 12 | 9 | awareness | 6 |
| 9 | difficult | 6 | |||
| Sum | 219 | Sum | 240 |
Lexical Usage in the First and Second Semesters. The findings indicate that by the end of the second semester, students had become more aware of the importance of appropriate vocabulary usage in writing, which is reflected in their frequent use of the term “check.” In contrast, during the first semester, their primary focus appeared to be on completing and submitting their writing tasks, with less attention given to precise word choice. Over time, however, a noticeable shift occurred in their approach: Students moved from emphasizing task completion to engaging more thoughtfully with the nuanced use of vocabulary. This progression suggests a developing awareness and an improvement in their ability to select vocabulary that is more contextually appropriate.
| Ranking | First semester | Frequency | Ranking | Second semester | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | task | 30 | 1 | word | 35 |
| 2 | think | 24 | 2 | vocabulary | 30 |
| 3 | write | 16 | 3 | use | 21 |
| 4 | submission | 15 | 4 | think | 14 |
| 5 | myself | 11 | 5 | usage | 12 |
| 6 | class | 11 | 6 | write | 10 |
| 7 | accomplish-ment | 11 | 7 | many | 9 |
| 8 | sentence | 11 | 7 | check | 9 |
| 9 | every time | 9 | 7 | appropriate | 9 |
| 10 | the 2nd term | 8 | 10 | expression | 8 |
| 10 | designated | 8 | |||
| 10 | time | 8 | |||
| 10 | can write | 8 | |||
| Sum | 170 | Sum | 157 |
Grammatical Accuracy in the First and Second Semesters. According to the KH Coder analysis, the most frequent terms for grammar-related self-reflection in the first semester were “grammar,” “many,” and “mistakes,” while in the second semester, “grammar,” “think,” and “write” were predominant, with “mistake” dropping to sixth place. Notably, the first semester includes specific grammatical terms such as “tense,” “subject,” “present,” and “verb,” which disappear in the second semester. Additionally, “review” appears in the first semester but is replaced by broader terms such as “accuracy,” “comprehension,” “sentence,” and “writing” in the second. This shift suggests a developmental trajectory in students’ understanding—from isolated grammar points to a more integrated and conceptual approach to grammatical accuracy.
| Ranking | First semester | Frequency | Ranking | Second semester | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | grammar | 53 | 1 | grammar | 43 |
| 2 | mistake | 27 | 2 | think | 12 |
| 3 | many | 18 | 3 | write | 11 |
| 4 | think | 13 | 4 | usage | 9 |
| 5 | forget | 13 | 5 | class | 9 |
| 6 | tense | 12 | 6 | mistake | 7 |
| 7 | review | 11 | 7 | a little | 7 |
| 8 | subject (S) | 9 | 8 | use | 6 |
| 9 | exam | 8 | 8 | myself | 6 |
| 10 | mind | 8 | 8 | accuracy | 6 |
| 10 | present | 8 | 8 | sentence | 6 |
| 11 | verb | 7 | 8 | text | 6 |
| 8 | comprehension | 6 | |||
| Sum | 187 | Sum | 134 |
The KH Coder map for the first semester reveals that “grammar” was often paired with “not,” suggesting frequent expressions of negative self-evaluation. Other specific terms like “plurality,” “forget,” and “preposition” also indicate a focus on discrete grammatical items. In contrast, the second semester reflections note habitual revision and reconnecting with high school grammar knowledge. Students’ reflections thus evolved from identifying surface-level errors to engaging in a deeper analysis of their writing process and underlying linguistic comprehension.
In summary, at the end of the first semester (the second writing assessment), students tended to pay attention to specific components such as sentence and language use through completing a writing portfolio. It was also found that their awareness shifted towards the quality of writing and broader perspectives, including mentioning those of writers. Therefore, it is suggested that students might develop a more sophisticated understanding of themselves as writers, and their metacognitive knowledge or awareness had developed by the end of the second semester.
| Task fulfillment | Organi-zation/ coherence |
Lexical use | Grammati-cal accuracy | Overview | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First semester | Completion of the task | Sentence topic |
General awareness of tasks | Specific grammati-cal items | English grammar, focus on language use |
| Second semester | Quality, substance of the written context |
Awareness, difficulty |
More specific awareness | Broader understand-ing of grammar and its application, learning attitudes towards grammar |
Substance of writing |
A comparison of students’ first and second semester reflections on their writing activities reveals a shift in awareness towards writing in English (Table 7). Notably, students recognized the challenges of writing, as indicated by “difficult” appearing in fifth place in the reflections of the second term, while “difficulty” was absent from the first term’s rankings. Additionally, terms like “content” and “myself” emerged in the second term, suggesting a greater focus on the substance of writing and the writer’s personal perspective. Unlike the second semester, the first showed more frequent use of terms related to “English” and “grammar.” These differences highlight a significant shift in students’ awareness, moving from a focus on language use to a more sophisticated understanding of themselves as writers.
The results of the quantitative analysis elucidated the effect of the self-assessment of the first semester through a portfolio, but an improvement in writing proficiency was not found at this stage. It is assumed that self-reflection through a portfolio presented an opportunity to metacognitively observe their writing ability and learning strategy. While the compiling of a writing portfolio helped students to push forward positively to the next step, it might not have affected the development of their writing proficiency. This is because the writing tasks in the second semester needed social background knowledge, while those of the first semester tended to be more personal topics. The lack of improvement between the second and final writing assessment might have been caused by the level of difficulty of the tasks. Though no clear increase in the assessment scores from the end of the first to the end of the second semester was found, students’ perspectives toward their writing seemed to shift from specific awareness—such as in lexical matters—to more writer-focused aspects like the quality of their writing. Reflecting on the whole year’s writing tasks led students to a different type of awareness from the first semester. This deeper reflection might make students more conscious of the difficulty involved in writing better, more skillfully, and more coherently. However, it cannot be denied that self-assessment showed the limits to enhancing writing proficiency, though it worked well in helping students to develop by themselves—in the study, teachers evaluated students’ writing tasks, but they did not make any descriptive comments on their portfolio. Self-assessment is useful for deepening self-reflection, yet once a certain level has been reached, further progress may be best supported by diagnostic feedback and guidance from a teacher, because no development of writing proficiency was found after the second writing assessment.
6.2 How Did Students’ Self-Reflection Evolve Through Bi-Semester Self-Assessments by Compiling a Portfolio?Based on a comparison of self-assessments in the first and second semesters, it was found that individuals can become aware of their progress, feel satisfied or reflect on their development, and set long-term goals rather than focusing on short-term objectives by observing their growth over a certain period. In particular, experiencing growth over an extended period fosters a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment, because reflective practice through a portfolio encouraged students to expand cognition and reinterpret what they were aware of. Such nonlinear and recursive experience helped students to gain self-confidence and self-esteem; therefore, it is believed that the compilation of a portfolio enabled the enhancement or deepening of self-evaluation.
Some students shared reflective comments regarding the process of compiling their portfolios. One student noted, “I became aware of my writing development and weaknesses through assembling my writing tasks in the portfolio, as it allowed me to trace the short history of my assembling my writing tasks in the portfolio. I could revisit my earlier thoughts, even though I still face difficulties in constructing sentences”. This suggests that the portfolio functioned as a tool for metacognitive reflection, enabling the student to review their developmental trajectory and identify future directions for improvement.
On the other hand, no development of writing proficiency was found in terms of quantitative analysis, though the results of the qualitative analysis reflected the different perspectives between the first and second semester. It is considered that, in order to catalyze a breakthrough from the stagnated growth observed after the previous term, constructive intervention by others is necessary. In other words, self-assessment has limited benefits in terms of improving writing proficiency, because it encourages students to focus only on the positive aspects or to criticize the drawbacks of their writing. In short, collaborative efforts between students and teachers could provide the former with catalytic interventions. In short, it may be beneficial to prepare more specific interventions by teachers in order to deepen learners’ reflection and self-assessment. By incorporating such reflective cooperation into a portfolio, individual learners can engage in more effective self-reflection, which may contribute to a higher degree of self-regulation.
The study found that the changes in self-reflection over two semesters in academic writing classes helped students to become more sophisticated writers. Furthermore, the portfolio allowed learners to be aware of their progress as writers and facilitated self-accomplishment and satisfaction. We need to create a more focused and targeted approach to portfolios with positive intervention on the part of others. By adding such reflective help by others to a personal portfolio, individuals can deepen their self-reflection process, ultimately enhancing their ability to self-regulate and manage their own learning and growth. In particular, the study did not ask teachers to make any comments to students on their self-reflection after each semester. It is anticipated that the effect of teachers’ intervention on writing portfolios will be investigated as a further study.
KH Coder Map for Lexical Usage in the First Semester
KH Coder Map for Lexical Usage in the Second Semester
